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The Museum’s Collections document the fate of Holocaust victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others through artifacts, documents, photos, films, books, personal stories, and more. Search below to view digital records and find material that you can access at our library and at the Shapell Center.

Nathan Beyrak conducted the interview with Teresa Prekerowa in Poland in July 1994, for the Poland Documentation Project. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview in March 1995.

Funding Note

The production of this interview was made possible by Jeff and Toby Herr.

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Record last modified: 2018-07-11 15:48:27
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn507771

Also in Oral history interviews of the Poland Documentation Project

Oral history interviews of the Poland Documentation Project recorded by the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The 26 interviews in this collection date from 1994 to1995.

Helena Kozlowska (née Balicka), born in 1920 in Warsaw, Poland, describes her family; her prewar contacts with Jews; fighting the Nazi occupation of Poland in 1939; her membership in the Young People's Fighting Union; local townspeople who assisted in the rescue of Jews; her participation in the rescue of Jews during the war; the Warsaw ghetto; participating in the Warsaw uprising in August 1944, as a member of the People’s Army; her involvement with Jewish resistance fighters of the organization Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa; losing her hand shortly after liberation in Krakow; being awarded the medal of Righteous Among the Nations in 1975; and her role as one of the founders of the Association for Polish-Israeli Friendship.

Krystyna Budnicka (Hena Kuczer), born on May 8, 1932 in Warsaw, Poland, describes her observant Jewish family of 10; her family life before and during World War II; her family members and their social standing; not being integrated with the Polish population; the outbreak of the war and the first persecutions of Jews, such as cutting off their beards; the treatment of Jews gradually worsening and the first deportations of Jewish men to labor camps; the establishment of the large ghetto, where the living conditions are relatively good and her brothers, the carpenters, made a decent living by building secret shelters for the rich Jews; their forced relocation to the little ghetto and the worse living conditions; the frequent routine deportations and the deportation of two of her brothers; the secret shelter that allowed the majority of her family to survive the deportation period; the change in perception in the Jewish community during 1942; her brothers and the influential Jews starting the construction of a long term shelter, a secret underground bunker; her everyday life in the bunker before and after the Ghetto Uprising as well as during the ghetto fire; the gradually worsening living conditions in the bunker; the extreme sickness of her brother, who was the group leader, and reaching out for help from Poles; the discovery of the bunker and trying to escape via the sewer; her parents together with her sister being left behind; the aid she received from an organized Polish group (possibly Żegota); being moved to various hiding places; the death of her last two brothers in 1943; surviving the Warsaw Uprising alongside the Polish population; ending up in a Christian orphanage, where she is treated kindly, and staying there until she finished high school after the war; acknowledging her Jewish roots, but adopting Christianity as her religion; and devoting her life to working with special needs children.

Jadwiga Gawrońska (Jankowska), born as Fryda Ruer on June 19, 1923 in Lublin, Poland, describes being from a partly assimilated Jewish family, which followed Jewish traditions and religion; speaking Polish at home and having Polish friends; her father, who was an accountant; the beginning of the war in Lublin and the early persecution of the local Jews; the establishment of the ghetto in 1940-1941; the closing of schools and frequent mandatory relocations; shady currency trading emerging in the ghetto; her brother working as a photographer in the local villages and obtaining food for her family; her family leaving the ghetto and moving to the countryside; a Jewish wedding taking place in the area; her father and brother working as farmers; her family being well accepted in the Polish village, due to their knowledge of German and urban sophistication; she and her sister making friends with the local youth; facing oppositions when her family tried to arrange false travel papers; the deportation of all the Jews from the local villages to Piaski, Poland on October 16, 1942 and finding shelter in the homes of many of her charitable friends; her father giving up and deliberately joining the group selected for deportation to the Trawniki concentration camp; the different ways in which her other family members were escaping the deportation; going to Lublin and then Warsaw, Poland and encountering “szmalcownicy” (blackmailers/collaborators) and purchasing identification documents through a well-established black market; the people, places, and details involved with of her life in Warsaw; her boyfriend, his little sister, and her illegally staying with many Polish families and having to relocate frequently; encounters with both decent Polish people (such as Wanda Olbrychska, who received the Righteous among the Nations Award) and mercenary opportunists, who worked for the Gestapo; her boyfriend (Berek) having to remain in hiding; receiving aid from Berek’s family and the Żegota; the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto; the passport black market; the operation of the Polish Hotel, located on Długa Street, which was the center for the Jewish illegal travel abroad; her boyfriend’s pre-war communist affiliations and befriending Poles, who worked for the socialist underground; getting involved in illegal distribution of the PSPR (Polish Socialist Workers Party) newspaper; many situations when she was blackmailed or nearly caught; engineer Cywiński from Sapieżyńska Street, who was saving Jews by means of a small hair-net production hall, which he created in his apartment; the AL (Armia Ludowa; People’s army) partisan battalion commanded by Jan Mulak and Berek being admitted to the group; the murder of the Jewish partisans in Życzyński Forest, including Berek; her life in Warsaw after Berek’s death, when she worked for a Jewish businessman (assumed name of Jan Łaski); joining her brother in Łuków; being accused of being a Jew by a Volksdeutsch and a German specialist being summoned to determine her race; the flight of the Germans in the area and the approach of the Soviet Army on July 23, 1944; her brothers’ “brush with death” while being an insurance collector; returning to Lublin and marrying a Pole after the war; antisemitism in Poland after the war and its roots; feeling guilty for her first husband’s death and her regret that she didn’t talk him out of joining the AL partisans; feeling both Jewish and Polish; the communist system in Poland; not discussing the war much; and her feelings about writing a memoir.

Anna Lanota (née Rottenberg), born in Lódz, Poland on January 11, 1915, describes her observant Jewish family; the backgrounds of her mother and father; speaking Polish at home and attending an expensive Jewish school, which was known for its Zionistic tendencies; visiting her father’s family on a commune near Skryhiczyn, Poland; graduating high school and moving to Warsaw, Poland, where she studied psychology; her affiliations with the communist movement; working for CENTOS (Central Organization for the Care of Orphaned Children) in Otwock, Poland; working with Janusz Korczak (Henryk Goldszmit); fleeing from Warsaw after the outbreak of the war in 1939; going towards Skryhiczyn; her first encounter with the Soviet Army in Kowle and the difficulties she had obtaining the proper identification papers; working in the local orphanage alongside Ukrainians and Georgians; moving to Lvov, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), where she worked in an orphanage; being unaware of the conditions in the Jewish ghettos; the German takeover of Lvov; returning to Warsaw in the fall of 1941; her first impression of the Warsaw Ghetto; beginning her work in the ghetto orphanage; her family being deported in July 1942; trying to warn others of the death camps, news of which had been told to them by the rail workers; her cousin escaping the gas van; witnessing the march of Korczak alongside his pupils to the Umschlagplatz on August 6; escaping from the ghetto and being helped by a stranger; her friends and family finding permanent lodgings for her and arranging false identification papers for her; working on behalf of the communists and helping to print and distribute the Głos Warszawy newspaper; joining the partisans at the end of 1942 and blowing up trains and reclaiming food supplies from the train transports; being wounded after an accident with a firearm and having to leave her unit; her fellow partisans being denounced, captured, and killed soon after; continuing to work for the underground with her husband; repairing damaged weapons and making explosives; the infamous Polish Hotel; the Warsaw Uprising and her husband’s participation on behalf of the AL (Armia Ludowa; People’s Army) in the Uprising; her husband’s death; her decision to not fight because she was pregnant; bribing her way out of Warsaw and giving birth to her child in Lublin, Poland; settling in Warsaw after the war; not returning to Lódz because it evoked too many painful memories; joining the Polish Communist Party; her work as the head editor of “Przyjaciόłka” magazine; being employed as a journalist and a psychologist; never experiencing antisemitic persecution in 1956 and 1968; and still trying to understand the Holocaust from the psychological point of view.

Helene Merenholc, born on March 15, 1911 and a lifelong resident of Warsaw, Poland, discusses her life in a well-educated, Jewish family; her parents’ occupations and attending school; her five gifted siblings, who pursued higher education and excelled either in music or science; most of her family dying during the war; studying and completing a psychology degree before the World War II; working as a counselor with the special needs children; problems related to the closing of centers for children with special needs due to the outbreak of the war; Centos, which was an organization that provided care for these children in the ghetto; being employed as a social worker in the ghetto; various forms of aid, such as soup kitchens and learning centers or theatre clubs, which were provided to the orphaned, handicapped, or mentally challenged children; the JOINT providing financial support to these endeavors; her acquaintance with the internationally renowned doctor, Janusz Korczak (Henryk Goldszmit), who later established orphanages in the ghetto and was then deported with his pupils to Treblinka; Adam Czerniaków, the Judenrat leader, who in her opinion was a brave and tragic figure; life in the ghetto, including the sickness, hunger, and the living conditions; finding employment in the ghetto brush shop (“szop szczotkarzy”); being passed over during random selections for deportations; her acquaintance with communist sympathizers, Mordechaj Anielewicz, Marek Edelman, and the historian Emanuel Ringeblum; Jews considering escape from the ghetto a betrayal of their own people and heritage; leaving the ghetto to engage in underground activity on the Aryan side; her work for Żegota (the Council to Aid Jews) alongside Antek (real name: Icchak Cukierman); her underground work related to saving the ghetto survivors and her encounters with “szmalcownicy” (mercenary collaborators); the Polish reaction to the ghetto uprising; her deportation to the camp in Pruszków; her work in Poland after the war; how because of her haunting wartime memories, she devoted herself to work in the Centralny Komitet Żydowski (a Polish organization involved in providing aid to the Holocaust survivors); and working later for the radio and the theatre.

Tomasz Miedziński, born in1928 in Horodenka (present-day Ukraine), describes being one of five children (four brothers and one sister); his father, Josef Szloime Szlach (Joseph Schleume Schlah), a carpenter; his mother, Klara Kupferman (Clara Kupfermann); assuming his Polish name in the 1950s; his family not being religious but speaking Yiddish at home; attending Jewish and Polish schools; the prewar atmosphere and the demographics of Horodenka; the nationalistic Ukrainian movement changing the relationship between Horodenka Jews and the Polish and Ukrainian nationals; Zionistic organizations in Horodenka; the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and its impact on Horodenka; the majority of Horodenka Jews welcoming the Soviet Army; the beginning of the German-Russian war in 1941 and the bombing of the sugar manufacturing plant in Horodenka; the formation of a temporary Ukrainian government, which was headed by engineer Rypczyn, and its anti-Semitic character; Ukrainian atrocities and the mass murder of the Jews in Niezwiska (Nezvys'ko), Ukraine; the Hungarian entry into Horodenka and the Commander Isztwan Kowacz (Istvan Kovacs) disbanding the Ukrainian Police; experiencing a period of relative peace; the establishment of the Jewish quarter; the funeral procession of the Ukrainian police commandant, Iwan Waskuł (Waskól); the retreat of the Hungarians and the entry of the Germans in August of 1941; the persecution of Jews and the desecration of the sites of Jewish martyrdom by Soviet authorities; the Jewish quarter under German rule and the conditions there; the first execution of Horodenka Jews in the nearby village of Siemakowce (Semakivtsi); the deportation of his mother and two younger brothers, one of whom (Szmulek) escaped; the second deportation of Jews from Horodenka in the summer of 1942 to the Kolomyia ghetto; many people being sent to the Janowska work camp and highly skilled craftsmen being allowed to remain; the inhuman and crowded living conditions in the Kolomyia ghetto and a selection, during which he and his younger brother (Szmulek) were separated from their father and his older brother was killed; the transport to Belzec concentration camp and how he and Szmulek escaped; locals who helped them during their return to the Kolomyia ghetto via Lvov (L'viv, Ukraine); his brief imprisonment in Jankowska work camp; his father’s death in the village of Szeparowcy; being separated from Szmulek, who likely died in Szeparowcy; travelling in November 1942 eastward disguised as a Ukrainian peasant and finding employment as a field hand for a Ukrainian farmer; voluntarily joining a Jewish work camp in the proximity of Tarnopol, Ukraine, where he worked in the fields until he realized the impending liquidation of the camp; being employed by a Ukrainian farmer, Wasyl Dziuba, in 1943; his nationality being discovered and continuing to work for the farmer; joining the partisans and taking part in the liberation in March of 1944; finding his sister in Horodenka and moving to Kłodzko, Poland; and later becoming a government employee in the Polish Department of Education.

Arnold Mostowicz (former name Aaron Moszkowicz and born in Lódz, Poland on April 6 1914) describes growing up in a non-traditional Jewish family; his father, who had a passion for theatre and was involved in left wing organizations; attending Polish and Jewish schools in Lódz; studying medicine in France, where he was affiliated with left-wing and syndical movements; being a founder of a Jewish student association in Toulouse, France; his analysis of the prospects and obstacles to the young Jewish intelligentsia before the Second World War; returning to Poland shortly before the outbreak of the war; working in a hospital during the German attack on Warsaw; returning to Lódz; the establishment of a Jewish council in Lódz; the Germans killing Rumkowski’s first cabinet; his defense of Rumkowski as a Jewish leader; the gradual changes which took place in the Jewish community; the relocation of all Jews to the ghetto; conditions in the ghetto; the differences between the ghettos in Warsaw and Lódz, particularly the black market; the production of goods in the ghetto; his work in the hospital and the types of illnesses present; having to triage patients; assisting the underground by providing false diagnosis and pronouncing individuals unfit to be transported out of the ghetto; prostitution in the ghetto; left wing activists in the ghetto; the first deportation from the ghetto in 1942 that consisted of the old, young, and sick; the Romani camp in the ghetto and the typhoid epidemic; the Roma being deported to the Chełmno death camp; the transports of Jews from Germany and Czechoslovakia to the Lódz ghetto; saving a little Jewish German girl from starvation; the radio contact and political awareness in the ghetto; knowing about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; the liquidation of the ghetto; selection on the platform in Auschwitz, where he was sent with his wife; his psychological method for surviving Auschwitz; his friend, Kępiński (Kempinski), who served in the “Kanada” unit; starvation and the impact on brain functions; his transport to the camp in Jelenia Góra (Hirschberg); soccer matches between the German soldiers and camp prisoners in Jelenia Góra; being transferred to the camp in Cieplice (German: Bad Warmbrunn), where he assisted in the response to typhoid epidemics; getting sick after the war with tuberculosis and giving up his career of a medical doctor; concentrating on his writing career and becoming the head editor for the satirical magazine “Szpilki”; being a chair of the Society for Jewish Fighters for Freedom and Democracy (Związek Kombatantów Żydowskich); and considering Poland his home country despite experiencing antisemitic persecution.

Zdzisław Szparkowski, the Righteous Among the Nations Award holder born in Włocławek, Poland, describes being the youngest child in the family; losing his father at an early age; attending technical school in Włocławek, where he got involved with the PPS (Polish Socialist Party; Polska Partia Socjalistyczna) along with many of his Jewish friends; the good relations between the Polish and Jewish population until 1931; the rise of radical antisemitic organizations; Włocławek being raided by Polish nationalists and taking part in defending against them; finishing school and joining the military and later working in a steel plant, where he got acquainted with Mordechaj Anielewicz; being mobilized shortly before the war; escaping a Nazi military camp after Poland’s defeat; returning to Włocławek; being a witness to many repressions towards the Jews, which led him to participate in organizing Jewish evacuations to the Soviet Union; fleeing to Warsaw, Poland after being denounced by a local Pole; organizing help for the Warsaw Ghetto Jews; distrusting organizations, such as Żegota, which were large enough for traitors to penetrate; supplying weapons to ŻOB (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa) in the ghetto as well as providing shelter to several Jews, both in his own apartment and in a specially outfitted bunker; funding these endeavors with profits initially made on minor trading; encounters with szmalcownicy (black mailers); the inhuman conditions in the ghetto and his support for the Ghetto Uprising; his views of the Warsaw Uprising; working for the MSZ (Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych; Ministry of Foreign Affairs) after the war; receiving the Righteous Among the Nations Award; feeling offended that the Polish nation is blamed for the Holocaust; Polish citizens helping Jews during the war; and his pride for the present-day Jewish community.

Learn about over 1,000 camps and ghettos in Volume I and II of this encyclopedia, which are available as a free PDF download. This reference provides text, photographs, charts, maps, and extensive indexes.